


i'll cover you in moonlight

by blackhawkdown



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Sharing a Bed, Zutara Fluff Exchange, soft and romantic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:28:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26592943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackhawkdown/pseuds/blackhawkdown
Summary: It's been two years since Sozin's Comet, and Zuko is still having nightmares. Katara has an idea that might help.
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 148
Collections: Zutara Fluff Exchange





	i'll cover you in moonlight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SooperSara](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SooperSara/gifts).



> Written for the Zutara Fluff Exchange! I'm not so used to fluff, and I kept changing my mind on what I actually wanted to _write_ , but hopefully the point gets across and it's enjoyable!

Zuko still had trouble sleeping through the night.

It had been nearly two years since Sozin’s Comet came and went, leaving behind a war-ravaged world and a teenage boy to lead the Fire Nation into a new era of peace, and Katara had assumed he’d adjusted since then. Perhaps it had been wishful thinking—after everything he’d been through, Zuko _deserved_ some peace of mind. With his father in prison, his sister (begrudging as she may have been) getting the help she needed, and his uncle opening a tea shop in the capitol city to be close and support him in the early years of his reign, she had hoped it would mean Zuko’s wounds—the emotional scars as well as the physical—could finally heal.

Though that may simply have been what she told herself so that she didn’t feel too guilty when she left for home—Zuko insisted he was fine, and she had affairs she needed to set in order at the South Pole, particularly since word had reached her that two of the younger children had recently exhibited bending ability. They were both girls, and if she had to kick Pakku’s ass from the North Pole all the way back to the South to get him to agree to train them, so be it.

But there was a piece of her _heart_ left behind, with him, and she couldn’t stay away for long. Perhaps if he’d told her the truth—that his scar still pained him, and nightmares plagued his sleep—she might have returned sooner.

“I’m sorry,” he admitted quietly, a few months after Katara returned. She’d cornered him the morning after having spotted the court physician leaving his bedchamber in the middle of the night. “I didn’t want you to worry.”

Katara tried to glare, but it melted into worry as she took in the worn look on his face, the bags underneath his eyes, visible even through the scarred flesh. “Zuko,” she murmured, stepping in close and lifting one hand, resting her fingers along the edge of his scar. “You don’t have to hide. Not from me.”

He sighed, tension easing from his shoulders as he leaned into her touch. His eyes drifted shut, and his brow furrowed as if recalling an unpleasant memory. “It’s… the nightmares, more than anything else. Makes it hard to sleep.”

“What are they about?”

Zuko’s eyes snapped open, his look almost incredulous. As if it should have been obvious. “I keep… I keep thinking… what if I hadn’t been _fast_ enough.” His hand moved, almost self-consciously, to the scar on his chest, hidden by his robes.

The sharp intake of breath said that Katara understood. “But you _were_.” The hand on his scar slipped around to the back of his neck, pulling him down until their foreheads touched, her free hand moving to his own on his chest. “You saved me, Zuko. I’m still here.”

His eyes slid shut again, and he let out a deep sigh of relief, practically melting into her. “I know, _agni_ , I know. It just… takes me a few minutes to remember, when I wake up. That’s all.”

There was a beat of silence, two lovers carving out a single moment of eternity for themselves, before Katara spoke again. “What if I was there?”

It took a second for the words to sink in, and then Zuko’s eyes flew open. He took a step back, half choking on his own breath for a moment, before he could get a word out. “W- what?” he stammered, heat rising in his cheeks.

Katara’s own face was practically glowing, and she tucked a lock of hair behind one ear, ducking her head self-consciously. “I didn’t mean like _that_ ,” she said, her voice remarkably steady for the way her heart was beating wildly inside her chest. “I just meant… your bed is big enough for two, right? And if…” Her cheeks were even more red, if that were possible, as she met his eyes. “If I’m _there_ , when you wake up, then it won’t take as long. And you can get back to sleep.”

Shakily, Zuko nodded, his throat working mightily before he managed to choke out a few words. “Yeah. Yeah, I’d… like that.”

The pair of them settled into a comfortable routine, after that. They would go to bed—and the palace servants knew better than to gossip, lest they feel wrath the lady Katara normally reserved for the ornery old nobles and former generals on the Fire Lord’s council—and, after the initial bouts of awkward fumbling as they tried to avoid hand-contact, fell into an easy slumber.

The first few nights, Katara awoke almost as soon as Zuko did. She could feel it when he shifted, waking with a start and breathing harshly as the last images of his nightmares bled away—she would sit up, cup his face in her palms, and press gentle kisses to his forehead until his breathing evened out and he lay down, holding tightly to her hands as he fell back to sleep.

It wasn’t so very long, though, before Zuko’s fits and starts stopped being quite so jarring. His breathing would still change, almost imperceptibly, and Katara would become vaguely aware of his weight shifting beside her, but not enough to fully wake.

She felt soft lips pressed against her shoulder, and an arm, warm and comforting, settling across her waist. It was the easiest night he’d had—she was awake enough to realize it, but not enough to fully open her eyes. “Thank you, Katara,” he murmured in her ear.

A moment passed, as if he was waiting to see if she would respond. Then-

“I love you.”

 _That_ got her attention. But he thought she was asleep, and she didn’t want to spoil that. When he was ready, he’d tell her by the light of day.

 _I love you, too_ , she thought to herself. _I always have_.


End file.
